Christmas in July

 First of all, the RSC blocks I’ve made recently. Some Wonky stars and three Ticky Tacky houses.

Not much sewing in the last couple of weeks because I’ve finally had my Christmas present!

Back in November last year my husband asked what I would like for my Christmas present and I said a new sewing table as I have been using my son’s old desk for the last 24 years. Not ideal because the desk had drawers on the right and with the kneehole on the left it meant that my sewing machine was on the left of the desk and nowhere for my sewing to rest. Particularly difficult when I was machine quilting or sewing on binding when I had to balance the work on my knee to take the weight! I also decided to have two shelves put up on the wall above the sewing table and a set of shelves too. Our carpenter was too busy in the run up to Christmas and then another long Covid Lockdown and our carpenter became difficult to contact. Eventually the job was done on 21st July! Better late than never, I’m delighted with the result.

I spent a long time last weekend sorting out all the things I had taken out of the room ready for the carpenter to assemble everything. I sorted out all my RSC projects, putting them into labelled plastic  boxes which went onto my new shelving units.

Then I sorted out all my tins containing all sorts of bits and pieces and labelled all of those too. They went up onto the wall shelves. All my other equipment, plus rulers etc are in the drawers, all to hand when I’m sewing. 

In between I’ve been knitting. One of my quilting friends has a young friend who is training to become a midwife. She is at a hospital in London which has a lot of mothers living in deprived conditions, so the Maternity staff try to make up baby packages for the Mums to take home including baby clothes. They welcome hand knitted jackets, hats and little blankets so I’ve started knitting. I made this little cardigan and am now knitting a second one. I have lots of yarn so I’ll continue knitting until I run out.

Yesterday was a big day as I went to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC,Birmingham. Obviously there wasn’t a Show last year due to Covid so it was exciting to go yesterday. Lots of differences: 10, 000 less tickets on offer over the 4 days of the Show, an extra hall(which are like aircraft hangars), wider aisles, everyone had to wear a mask and observe social distancing and so on. Most of the larger traders didn’t attend which was a shame and there were not many people there either. I don’t think there were as many Competition quilts and all the Galleries were home grown people and collections, not the world wide variety we are used to. Glad I went but it was all rather surreal. Nice to have fewer people though as I was able to see the quilts easily, photograph the ones that particularly caught my eye and move around quickly so I covered the whole Show very easily. Other years I’ve gone two or three of the four days but one day was more than enough time to see everything. I didn’t make many purchases but I did buy two metres of this rainbow fabric which will be a useful backing for an RSC project.

I’ll write another post just on the Show as I have lots of photos to sort through.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog for RSC 2021.

Creative Use of Stash

As I have been trying to get my stash in order for several years, making loads of Scrap Quilts, cutting up smaller pieces into squares and strips I wholly empathised with Bonnie Hunter's blog post that she wrote a couple of days ago.

As you might imagine the amount of fabric I own and am dealing with is a mere 'drop in the ocean' compared to Bonnie's!  I gazed in awe and wonder at her filing shelves of see-through plastic shoe boxes containing FQs, sorted into colours, one or more box for each colour collection. She even had enough FQs to differentiate between the shades of pinks etc.

But of course Bonnie is a designer, teacher and prolific maker of HUGE quilts whereas I quilt as a hobby, making quilts for family and friends, the local hospital and good causes. I don't have a huge basement as a studio either, just a small bedroom that belonged to my son.

But, I do have a chest of drawers full of fabrics, a bookcase holding books and plastic boxes of threads, ribbons, embroidery floss, tins and jars of buttons, plastic bags and boxes of strips and squares of various sizes, a big box of batting off-cuts and bags of larger pieces of batting, three bags of strips, and tins of small scraps of fabric to use for making Crumb Blocks.  A lot for me to keep on top of and to keep moving from stash to finished quilt.

Very conscious that I need to use up some of this stash, I have been concentrating on using some of the pieces of fabric I re-discovered in my recent Big Sort Out.

I found a lovely Noah's Ark panel - bought so long ago I had completely forgotten I owned it and can't even remember where I bought it.  So, before it got buried again I decided to USE IT UP!  As I sorted I gathered together fabrics, squares and strips that I thought would blend with the panel colours.  Quite an unusual combination of muted colours but I found plenty to make a Boy Baby Quilt.  This morning I managed to use more from that fabric collection to make a pieced backing and it is now sandwiched ready for hand  quilting with a variegated yellow and olive green Perle cotton.

Every single part of this quilt was what I had squirreled away in my Sewing Room and I am pleased with the result.  Even more pleased that this quilt completely uses up stash that has been lying around for far too long.  Of course by the time I trim the quilt for binding I will create yet more scraps and strings which will go back into my stash.  You can't win, can you?

Here's the quilt:

 

And here's the pieced backing:

 

Of course there is another ulterior reason for my Big Sort Out. From 6th - 9th August it is the large Festival of Quilts Show at Birmingham's NEC.  I will be going on three of the days as there is far too much to fit into one visit. On the Friday I will be taking my sister with me so that's a nice opportunity for us to spend quality time together.  There are vendors galore and now I know what stash I have I know where the gaps are: batting, neutral fabrics ( 1/2 metres and FQs ), large pieces of green, yellow and blue fabrics, especially for backings and some solids.  Good job I am making more than one visit so I can carry everything home with me!

Happy sewing!

 

 

Festival of Quilts and sewing

I visited the Festival of Quilts on two separate days and enjoyed both days as I do every year. This is the first year I haven't been a Quilt Angel ( still receiving treatment so not up for all that physical hard work) so it was strange not to have seen behind the scenes before the Show opened.
Saw lots of lovely quilts, loads of hexagons including one which had zillions of tiny tiny hexagons ( less than 1" I would think!).

Hard to pick out a few favourites, but I'll try!

Loved the Group winner, "The Quilters' Games" which was a very amusing quilt reflecting the idea of quilters as synchronised swimmers!

This quilt was beautifully done, made from boxer shorts and socks! I have seen it chosen on another blog too so you may have seen this quilt before.

Also enjoyed the exhibition of Quilts created out of a British/German exchange of fabrics.  All really different and so clever with their use of the fabrics sent to them and combining those with fabrics from their own stash.

Two fabulous Pictorial quilts which caught my eye:

One of the competition quilts which was a wonderful representation of a little view of a Venice canal, all beautifully embellished so it was 3D.

And this was in a Gallery within the Festival of Quilts which was like looking a photograph of Darling Harbour in Sydney!

And my all-time favourite which I chose for my Visitors' Choice was this fabulous quilt showing a marvellous variety of faces, all created from snippets of fabric.  Absolutely stunning!

Entitled: This Many faces, This Many Cultures by Rita Dijkstra-Hesselink, Hengelo, Holland

As always, loads of traders and I enjoyed saying hello to Katy aka I'magingermonkey, busy working and doing demos.  Tried not to buy too much as I am still trying to use up fabrics from my stash.  But I did need more batting, and some Kona cotton in yellow and aqua, Aurifil thread and I couldn't resist a lovely turquoise fabric with a lemon spot which I know will be great for bindings and perhaps a border or two.

On the sewing front I have now completed my Siblings Together Top and I am pleased with it. It is now ready for pin basting and like most of the quilters I know, this is the part I dislike, so it is sitting there looking at me! But I do have the batting now and I have cut the backing to size so I just have to bite the bullet!

I have also been putting together a few little Premature Baby/ Doll quilts with some of the Crumb blocks I have been making.  I have finished two, another is ready for binding, another being hand quilted and two more ready to be sandwiched. I gave one to my daughter for a little gift from our Granddaughter to another 2 year old girl and just posted another to accompany a storybook for our neighbour's little granddaughter who is one tomorrow.  When I have a few more completed quilts I'll pop them round to our local hospital.

So a busy few weeks and lots of sewing to do and hundreds of ideas whizzing round my head!